Amazon.com video review:
Back in 1952, during the waning days of film noir, director
Richard
Fleischer made The Narrow Margin, a cheaply produced, tightly
structured B movie thriller about a cop forced to protect a gangster's
widow while on a train. While it's no work of art, Fleischer's noir
features a shocking climax of mistaken identity, an ominous, claustrophobic
atmosphere, and tough, nearly unlikable protagonists screwed by
fate, who spout sharp-witted dialogue and feel little more than contempt
for each other. When Hollywood remakes itself, all the understatement
and charm is usually lost when the filmmakers try to "modernize" the
subject matter. This is one of many problems with writer-director Peter
Hyams's remake (given the slightly shorter title Narrow Margin). He's
dumped
the surprising plot twist (it's now an action set piece atop a moving
train) and softened the characters (now played with sleepwalking intensity
by Gene Hackman and Anne Archer) with preposterous motivations. All that
seems to be intact is the train premise, but Hyams is more interested in
its action potential than any kind of menacing atmosphere. He's dropped the
ambiguous relationships and smart dialogue in favor of pumping up the
action sequences and daredevil stunts to ridiculous levels. Instead of
adding excitement, all Hyams's expensive tricks do is drain Narrow
Margin of any tension it might've retained from the original. --Dave
McCoy
